THE first album Julia Stone completely wrote with her brother Angus, Snow, is also her most sentimental.

“It represents that chapter for us where we’ve finally figured it out, we can be friends,” she says. “We have a really deep connection – music forced us to invest the time in getting to know somebody, accepting somebody and loving somebody in the right way.

“We both consider ourselves really lucky to do this weird thing together – spend 14 years hanging out with your brother in a very unique environment.

“I consider it a real privilege to work with him.”

The indie-folk duo went into the studio with “no preconceived ideas” and wrote the album “from scratch”.

“It was time that we really bonded, we had months and months together just the two of us hanging out, walking around, playing tennis, and writing music,” Julia says.

“And that’s the dream for any artist just to have time to create and see what happens.

“It’s something you could never make on your own and come up with that sort of storytelling without the other person to bounce off.”

Having the same sense of humour and rarely disagreeing on a musical choice, the pair give each other a “safe space” to create.

“Of course when you’re creating anything, anyone who paints, dances, sings, acts, even the creative elements of any job, there’s a place you have to go through to experiment to get to the place where you find out a new way of doing things and sometimes that process can be a bit clunky,” she says.

Their musical connection dates right back to their childhood, as their dad performed in a cover band and held rehearsals at home.

“That’s a cool thing as a kid, you start to learn that making something work as a group takes time and effort,” Julia says.

“We heard what it takes to find a harmony. That all seeps into your brain.”

After a “full on” year touring the world, including Europe, Egypt, Turkey, Poland and South Africa, the pair will perform songs from Snow at SummerSalt on Glenelg Beach.

Adelaide is one of Julia’s favourite cities, although the locals often don’t believe her.

“It’s a city that has so many elements of country Australia but also has the Fringe Festival and Womad and all these elements of the world coming to this small city and the thing that makes Australia so awesome is that attitude of country people.”

The gentle and humble 34-year-old is looking forward to that “instant exchange” with Adelaide fans.

“As an artist, you write song and sing it and hopefully people feel something in the moment and then you feel something in return – it’s this really nice thing that happens,” she says.

SummerSalt has a “really great line-up” – Ollie English, Didirri, Seaside and Meg Mac – the latter, as Julia says, is “super connected to the music”.

“Her voice is astonishing – it is so strong,” Julia says.

“She’s such a powerful, powerful performer. I find that strength in a singer really impressive. I’ve got strength in my voice but mine’s much more gentle.”

Julia speaks to Music Confidential from Esperance, WA, after finishing filming for Dirt Music, based on a Tim Winton novel.

The siblings are working on solo projects and plan to create another collaborative album late next year.